DOUGLAS — Franny Martin was elbow-deep in cookie dough earlier this month, working with staff at her Cookies on Call to mix and bake 16,000 cookies for Macatawa Bank.

“This is the biggest order we’ve ever made. It took us a week to make the cookie dough — which took nearly a ton of ingredients — and then bake cookies for 33 hours nonstop,” said Martin, 65, founder and owner of Cookies on Call, a Douglas-based cookie kitchen, café and catering service.

The West Michigan bank had placed the huge cookie order for a customer promotion.

Big orders like that are quite a change from the early days in 2002, when Martin made batches by the dozens in the Douglas Elementary School kitchen in the middle of the night before school started.

“Those were fun, very busy days. In fact, they are still fun busy days,” said Martin, who moved her business to a commercial retail outlet on Blue Star Highway in 2005 and then moved the operation to downtown Douglas, 25 Center St., in 2008.

Before opening Cookies on Call, Martin had a 30-year career in marketing for such companies as Burger King, McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza.

“I was ready to do something different, and I always loved baking, so I decided to open a cookie business,” said Martin, who started the company by testing cookie recipes on friends.

The taste-testing turned up a dozen cookies that brought raves from the group, and a business was born. With four staffers, Cookies On Call now makes 42 types of chocolate chunk cookies, two ginger cookies and three styles of oatmeal cookies.

In addition to the Douglas retail store, Cookies on Call sells cookies to corporations and individuals online through cookiesoncall.com and Hiller’s Markets in Detroit.

Cookies sell for $18 a dozen, with choices ranging from Chewy Caramel and Nuts to Definitively Chocolate Chunk to Purely Scrumptious. Discounts for bulk orders are available.

Martin’s company sells and ships cookies to 48 states and almost a dozen countries including China, England, Israel, Saudi Arabia, France and Switzerland.

“We’ve grown every year since we started, and now we’re looking to open a second location in Detroit,” said Martin, whose sales are 40 percent from West Michigan and 60 percent national and international.

“Former Michigan Governor James Blanchard is one of our good customers, and he took some back to his law firm in Washington, and the people there started ordering cookies from us,” she said.

“It’s all come from word-of-mouth about the cookies,” said Martin, who declined to give annual sales for competitive reasons.

Martin doesn’t keep track of the number of cookies she sells annually. “I keep saying I’m going to, but then I get too busy making cookies to keep track.”